The present invention relates to a wire harness made up of a plurality of electric wires formed in a desired pattern and arranged for ease of terminal processing such as stripping the wire and press-joining the same with a terminal material as well as method of and apparatus for manufacturing the same.
A wire harness generally has a two-dimensional configuration, as shown in FIG. 6, constituted of a trunk line portion W.sub.0 formed of a bundle of a plurality of wires a.sub.1, a.sub.2, . . . and a plurality of branch line portions W.sub.1, W.sub.2, W.sub.3, . . . branched to correspond to a distribution of various loads and groups of electric equipages such as switches on a motor vehicle, each wire being connected at the end thereof with a terminal b, which is further provided with a connector housing c mounted thereon.
The present applicant proposed a method of and apparatus for manufacturing such a wire harness (Japanese Patent Application No. 57-9081, U.S. Pat. No. 4,476,629 specification). In this method, a plurality of wiring boards d.sub.1, d.sub.2, . . . are arranged at the first on a working board e at relative positions of products as indicated by connector housings c in FIG. 6 and also pins f for laid wires to engage therewith are vertically embedded therein. The wire is first locked for example to a wiring board d.sub.1, then the wire is laid to another wiring board d.sub.2 by means of a wiring head (not shown) scanning the working board (along both X-axis and Y-axis), and the wire is locked to the wiring board d.sub.2 and cut at a distance therefrom. After wires have been laid between desired wiring boards in succession, the ends of the wires are subjected to stripping and press-joining process with terminal metallic materials at the positions near the wiring boards d.sub.1, d.sub.2, . . . .
However, with the above described method, there occur various problems as follows.
(1) The device for stripping the wire and the device for press-joining the wire with a terminal material are required for the ends of laid wires in scattered positions.
(2) When the specification of products is changed, all of the wiring boards, wire engagement pins, stripping devices, and so on must be moved and therefore much time and labor are required for the new setup.
(3) Since the terminals on which the connector housings are to be mounted are scattered as shown in FIG. 6, automation therefor is difficult.
(4) Since the stripping devices, terminal press-joining devices, and so on that are required are large in number, the initial cost is high and maintenance control is difficult.